Policies and Proposals

by the Texas Border Coalition

to Advance a

North American Century

Introduction In 1941, Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce urged the United States to "create the first great American Century." His vision was more successful than anyone imagined at the time. In 2000, as the world crossed into the new millennium, some said that Asia would command the 21st Century. The Texas Border Coalition believes that assessment was wrong. We suggest the world is entering a North American Century during which the United States, Canada and Mexico can harness their mutually reinforcing natural resources, energy and political stability to win the economic competition with Asia and Europe. A growing chorus of voices agrees – including former CIA Director General David Petraeus, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, bipartisan congressional leaders like Michael McCaul and Beto O'Rourke, the George Bush Institute and the Wilson Center. A clear eyed analysis of the global economic and security future sees the Western Hemisphere entering the 21st Century in an enviable position straddling both the Transatlantic and Transpacific regional spheres, enjoying over a century of continental peace, heading toward energy independence and – most importantly – possessing a spirit of innovation necessary to dominate industrial and technological competitiveness. To claim this future, the Western Hemisphere must invest in a solid foundation built on first-class education systems, infrastructure and healthcare. It also requires special attention to the keystone of our common economic destiny: modern, secure and efficient borders that facilitate the trade and travel that enable our nations to flourish, while keeping our nations safe. These essays focus on how to shape the future of our border region so that they can facilitate the Western Hemisphere's competitive economic advantages. The Texas Border Coalition invites you to join us as we drive our continent toward continued prosperity and competitiveness in the North American Century. J.D. Salinas III Chairman, Texas Border Coalition

Foreword The Texas Border Coalition is the voice of 2.4 million Americans in 17 border counties of the 1,250-mile Texas-Mexico border. Ours is a region of contrasts, exhibiting both differences and similarities of language, culture, tradition, and economy. The multi-national, multi-cultural nature of our communities on both sides of the international boundary gives our region a distinct sense of place. No one cares more about the security of the U.S.-Mexican border than those of us who live, work and raise our families here. As public officials, business owners and families in the border region, we see how quickly our security needs evolve as threats change. A successful border security solution needs to repel threats with the most effective security strategies while preparing to meet new security challenges as the situation changes. Our shared goal is border security, but true security will not be obtained until Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform. We support an earned legalization program for the undocumented people who are in the U.S. today. We need an effective guest worker program to prevent the repetition of failed immigration policy and politics. We need more than a limited immigration proposal that balances the ideological and political scales in Congress and the nation. We need sustainable, workable immigration policies that balance supply and demand, provide circularity and stability in times of demographic and economic change for our hemisphere, and guarantee our economic and national security for years to come. Effective border security opens the door for an expansion of the Western Hemisphere's economic growth. In 2016, the combined Gross Domestic Product of the United States, Canada and Mexico will total $22 trillion, greater than China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined. U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico supports nearly 14 million U.S. jobs, and nearly 5 million of these jobs are supported by the increase in trade generated by NAFTA.

White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

Our combined economic success depends on working together to maximize the advantages we enjoy in democratic, free-market systems, operating in geographic proximity in a free trade agreement facilitated by common boundaries. Over the past decade, the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments have worked to integrate customs procedures, regulations and handling of documentation to assure that trade flows abide by the rules and regulations of each jurisdiction they cross. As our cross-border clearances have become more efficient, our physical limitations have become a notable impediment to efficient trade with delays at border crossings, bottlenecks and long customer clearance times. To boost the benefits of our hemispheric cooperation between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, we have to invest in a secure, efficient system of border crossings, as well as educating and training our workers, improving our transportation networks, advancing the health and well-being of our population and establishing policies that foster economic growth.

A North American Agenda Depending on a person's individual point of view, the 21st Century North American agenda might begin either with security, trade, education, transportation, or healthcare. They are all part of the fabric that helps make the North American continent a great economic power. Perhaps because the Texas Border Coalition represents communities on the border of the U.S. and Mexico, trade is a key focus of our vision. We suggest that if Americans can buy a good or service from outside the U.S. more cheaply than an equivalent good made in the U.S., our economy grows more rapidly. The reason is that all Americans are consumers. If we favor consumers by implementing policies that allow them access to less expensive goods, there is more net income, which can be invested in businesses here at home, and more Americans will be employed.

As we buy and invest on our continent and the continent prospers, there will be more customers for U.S. goods and services. The alternative is unrealistic: to try to live behind tariff walls in a free trade world is to invite disaster. A high wage island in a world of low wage jobs suggests that we import cheap raw materials, add a lot of well-paid value by education and innovation, and then export the value-added final products. Low tariffs and a well-educated, innovative labor force lead to growth. Our success requires efficient borders; more, better education for more people, especially technical and

scientific education; well organized transnational transportation systems; health care that improves the well-being and productivity of our people. Our agenda is aimed at improving prosperity and wellbeing in the Western Hemisphere. It also intends to address the unique challenges we face on the Texas border related to poverty, geography and investment.

NASA Photo

The Border Region

People of Mexican origin make up 31.6 percent of the population in Texas. The concentration of people of Mexican origin is higher in border counties, with Hispanics making up 88 percent of the population, according to the most recent U.S. Census. People living in the border region face an array of factors that make their quality of life different than the rest of the people in either Mexico or the U.S. Scholars at the Wilson Center suggest measuring the border region’s quality of life in four dimensions: economic opportunity; education and culture; health; and community life. The Laredo economy is indicative of metropolitan areas along the Texas–Mexico border. According to the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, Laredo’s unemployment rate reached near-record low levels in 2015 even though payroll employment growth in the area was weak. The jobless rate in Laredo ended 2015 at 5 percent, while payrolls grew just 1.1 percent. However, signs for the future are uncertain. Growth of the Laredo labor force has stalled, expanding only 0.1 percent in 2015, well below the annual average labor force growth rate of 2.8 percent since 1990. Regional economic factors such as falling oil prices and associated layoffs likely account for some of the slow labor growth in recent years. The Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) suggests that investment in public higher education in the border region has improved since 1993. The border's share of Texas higher education state revenues has improved from 11 percent to 18 percent during that time, available doctoral programs grew from three to 65 and local school districts saw their revenues rise from 70 percent to 95 percent of the state’s average revenue per student. Compared to a generation ago, the border has 70 percent more university students and these students are attending higher quality and more comprehensive universities, leading to greater opportunities, more focus on community issues and a very rapid increase in the economic and development effects of our universities on border communities and the state. At the same time, K-12 public schools in the border region lack both social and financial capital due to uneven distribution of funding under the Texas public school finance system, high levels of poverty and the challenges of educating bilingual and bicultural residents. A recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court to allow the Texas public education funding mechanism to stand will make it more difficult to improve the capital allocation to border schools.

The health challenge on the border begins with the region’s lack of health insurance coverage and grows more daunting from there. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the nation, with 19.1 percent lacking health insurance. The uninsured rate on the border is more than double the statewide rate, contributing to any number of health problems. Amid this mixed picture of increasing college attainment, an inadequate public K-12 education system, regional economic struggles and the challenge of keeping a largely uninsured workforce healthy, border communities view the future with hope, founded in hard work and strong families. It is what gives our people the will to take on long-term fights that face long odds, and inspires the Texas Border Coalition to press Texas and U.S. leaders to implement policies that will help our region grow and prosper.

Border Security Any discussion of border security has to begin with an unsparing threat analysis that views the border through the same two-part lens the government has used for generations; first, border security at the legal entry points (or ports of entry, POE’s); and second, security in the vast spaces between the POE’s. One government police force, the blue-uniformed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, guards the Ports of Entry. Between the ports, the green-uniformed Border Patrol is charged with enforcing border security. In the past, the greatest threats of contraband smuggling and human trafficking existed in the long stretches between the legal border crossing points, including the Mojave, Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts and along the Rio Grande River in Texas. That is where most Mexican immigrants once entered the United States illegally, a pattern that is now in steep decline. A Pew Research Center analysis of government data from the U.S. and Mexico shows that from 2009 to 2014 more Mexican immigrants left the U.S. than entered it. The analysis also shows the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its lowest since the 1990s, mostly due to the drop in the number of Mexican immigrants entering the U.S. Today, the transnational drug cartels pose a larger threat to border security than illegal immigration. As the Border Patrol cracked down on human and drug smuggling in the empty expanses between the border Ports of

Entry (and TSA worked to secure the nation's airports), the drug cartels have adapted to focus their criminal enterprises at the new weakest link -- legal border POE’s. For decades, the drug most frequently smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border was bulky, relatively light marijuana – almost all of which crossed through the open country between the Ports of Entry. In fiscal year 2015, marijuana accounted for 99 percent of illegal drugs seized by the Border Patrol between the southwest legal border crossings. However, that represents 99 percent of a dramatically

Texas Border Security Council Photo

reduced flow of contraband – only 1.5 million pounds of marijuana was confiscated on the Texas border in 2015, the lowest point in over a decade. By comparison, in 2009 about 4 million pounds were confiscated. At the same time, over three-quarters of the heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine smuggled into the U.S. enters through legal Ports of Entry at our border. This illegal trade, which is estimated to bring the cartels about $40 billion in annual revenue, operates with far better technology, intelligence and mobility than the U.S. government agents employ to prevent it. As is evidenced by the heroin epidemic across the U.S., the traffic in heroin (as well as methamphetamine and cocaine) continues to rise. The data shows that the huge investment in border security in the open country between Ports of Entry – the vast increase in the number of Border Patrol agents, 680 miles of border fencing, massive deployment of new technology, increased mobility, improved intelligence and better communications -- has reduced illegal activity on the southwest border between the legal entry points. Other factors, including the Great Recession and the legalization of the production and distribution domestically grown marijuana, have contributed to the trend. As the profitability of human smuggling rose, the cartels made wholesale what was once a retail smuggling industry - and raised prices. They adapted to fences and more numerous Border Patrol officers by using technology and communications to increase the success of their smuggling operations, moving on to smuggling through tunnels and other means. However, the cartels did not have to adapt their highest margin smuggling enterprises: the trafficking of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine through the legal Ports of Entry into the U.S. The threat to U.S. security on the border has evolved over the past 15 years: the numbers of people and the amount of illegal drugs entering between the Ports of Entry has declined while the amount of illegal drugs entering through the legal Ports of Entry has skyrocketed. The inevitable conclusion – obvious to the people on the ground at the border – is that building a wall to stop smuggling and illegal immigration between the ports would amount to re-fighting the last war. The fight today is at the Ports of Entry. To be successful, this war must be fought where we are being attacked. We do not propose to abandon the fight we are winning against human and drug smuggling between the Ports of Entry, but instead we suggest a Texas Plan to maintain a strong defense in the open country while we harden our weakest

points of defense – the legal Ports of Entry. If the U.S. is sincere about securing the border, defeating the drug cartels has to be Job One. The alternatives to fortifying the POE’s (such as more fencing) miss the target and would have no impact on the cartel's $40 billion criminal industry. Between the Ports of Entry, TBC recommends taking advantage of the Rio Grande River by moving boots off the ground and onto the water. As reported by the Texas Tribune, the Border Patrol maritime force is highly successful at preventing illegal river crossings when they have boats on the water, but they do not keep their boats patrolling around the clock. As a result, smuggling action surges after the boats leave the river. TBC notes the hundreds of miles of border fencing in Texas. Instead of building more fencing, we recommend the acquisition of sufficient patrol boats and training for agents to patrol the waters of the Rio Grande 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Texas Plan won't impact the other U.S. states on the Mexican border: New Mexico, Arizona and California. Since each border region is unique to itself, and one size never fits all, the TBC recommends enlisting the leadership of local leaders in those states to devise plans that will work best to secure their communities. At the Ports of Entry, TBC echoes the suggestions of House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security Candice Miller that the land ports of entry should be modernized the meet the threat of the drug cartels at an estimated cost of $6 billion. We also recommend that the Department of Homeland Security complete the hiring and training of 2,000 Customs inspectors funded by Congress in 2014 and the funding of the full Customs force identified by the Homeland Security Department's staffing models: 2,107 additional Customs inspectors and 631 new Agriculture Specialists. Any increase in staffing must be accompanied by a return to a balanced management structure. The ratio of Customs and Border Protection supervisors to frontline employees is 1 to 5.6 for the total CBP workforce, 1 to 5.7 for CBP Officers and 1 to 6.6 for CBP Agriculture Specialists. This top-heavy structure increases costs without protecting border communities. As stated earlier, no security effort will be successful until Congress reforms the American immigration system. TBC supports fair and effective immigration policies that keep border communities secure while recognizing the economic contributions immigrants make to the U.S. and Texas economies. We support an

earned legalization program for the undocumented people who are in the U.S. today. We need an effective guest worker program to prevent the repetition of failed immigration policy and politics. We also need uniformity on the border, such as equal duration limits on Canadian and Mexican visitors who enter the U.S. using I-94 or border crossing cards. With the implementation of these recommendations, the border can be secured and the other steps necessary to usher in a North American Century can be accomplished.

Health Texas border residents face complex barriers to accessing health care, due to multiple socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental challenges. The challenge can hardly be overstated: according to the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System estimates, 47.5 percent of Texas border residents age 18 and older lacked health insurance. The border population suffers higher rates of obesity, diabetes, cervical cancer and tuberculosis than other Texans – problems compounded by an inadequate health workforce in the border region and lack of access to primary, preventive, and specialty care. There are indicators that the challenge can be met: the border population fares well on several leading health indicators, including infant mortality, heart disease and stroke. Yet, high rates of uninsured people and extraordinary rates of communicable and chronic illnesses have a tremendous impact on the border’s health care system in terms of both human and financial cost. The higher disease rates are draining on an already overburdened health care system. Today, the existing border health care delivery system is unable to provide basic primary medical care to those in need.

In addition to improving access to care, there is a critical need for increased surveillance and tracking of communicable diseases, environmental factors, and other influences on health. The U.S.-Mexico Unit of the Centers for Disease Control manages and supports the Border Binational Infectious Disease Surveillance program to help with early warning and identification of potential disease outbreaks such as the Zika virus. The lack of a public health laboratory to test biological specimens complicates routine surveillance of diseases and impedes timely implementation of public health control measures.

Yet, strides are being made to improve the public health infrastructure, including the creation of new educational and research institutions that can train culturally

Centers for Disease Control graphic

competent health care providers. The successful public health programs that have been implemented in the border region need to be replicated in order to broaden their availability. The importance of improving public health is self-evident to individuals and communities, and the advantages of a healthy workforce for business are numerous and proven. Absenteeism and presenteeism—employees showing up for work while ill—are serious drains on overall productivity. Helping employees prevent or control chronic diseases can help reduce the burden of direct medical costs. Improved public health also helps attract and retain employers and productive, satisfied employees.

To ensure a brighter future for border citizens and protect the productivity of our workforce, we must improve access to health care. TBC supports funding for core public health programs and services and the elimination of health disparities, including:

• Access to Care: increased access to basic medical care for the uninsured, creation of “medical homes” that provide a regular primary care provider or other source of ongoing health care and an adequate supply of qualified nurses;

• Diabetes Mellitus: combat the epidemic in childhood and adult obesity and related increased risks of diabetes; reduce both the mortality rate for diabetes patients and the need for hospitalization;

• Immunization and Infectious Diseases: expand immunization coverage for young children; reduce the incidence of hepatitis and tuberculosis;

• Respiratory Diseases: reduce the rate of hospitalization for asthma. • Cancer: reduce cancer mortality; • Telemedicine: expand the appropriate use of telemedicine and

telemonitoring to increase healthcare access in rural and medically underserved areas; and

• Zika: control mosquito-borne illness by curtailing the illegal dumping of used and scrap tires.

Photos from the Community Health Council, Health Care Natural and the Jamaica Observer

Transportation North American supply chains are highly integrated with plants, warehouses, distribution centers and suppliers of parts and materials interspersed along both sides of the border. Eighty-four percent of this trade is moved by land and the majority moves through a select number of key border crossings. The ability to move people and goods across the border efficiently is critical to maintaining the tight schedules required for the movement of finished products and raw goods that are part of “just-in-time” supply chains. Efficient movement of passengers is also important, facilitating the tourism, employment, business and personal travel that links Texas and Mexico. The Texas border region is a world leader in international trade and enjoys a growing population. Texas has 29 Ports of Entry (POEs) of which thirteen process commercial trucks in addition to, or instead of, privately owned vehicles. Across all Texas border crossings, truck traffic has increased by 21.9 percent since 2009. Rail is also a significant part of the border transportation picture, with 85.3 percent of all of the trains that entered the U.S. from Mexico in 2013 crossing into Texas. In 2014, over $246 billion worth of goods and 3.7 million trucks crossed the Texas-Mexico border. A key emerging international cargo corridor is the $2.2 billion Mazatlan- Matamoros Corridor that will cut travel times between Mazatlan and the Rio Grande Valley by six or more hours and reduce transportation costs by between $500 and $1,500 per truck. The new corridor serves Mexican Pacific coast marine ports and Mexican domestic fruit and vegetable producers. The corridor has helped Texas surpass Arizona as the nation's main entry point for agricultural products.

In the most recent surface transportation legislation enacted by Congress and President Barack Obama, TBC supported several provisions to direct more federal transportation funds to the border region.

North American Rail Network from Radicalcartography

The Coordinated Border Infrastructure Reserve Fund gives border states like Texas the option to reserve up to five percent of statewide Surface Transportation Funds for qualified border infrastructure purposes, providing funding certainty and allowing stakeholders and border communities to advocate for border infrastructure. New funding for border region freight projects and the designation of Ports of Entry as key freight arteries has already resulted in additional border infrastructure funding. The Texas Department of Transportation has identified 139 border projects – with a total estimated cost of more than $4 billion– that would enhance international border coordination strategies to improve freight transportation safety, mobility and efficiency, facilitate trade and travel, and enhance security. TBC supports additional funding for transportation infrastructure that will enable a free flow of legitimate trade and travel in border trade corridors and energy zones throughout the region, including:

• Infrastructure upgrades to reduce wait times and facilitate legitimate trade and travel at border crossings; appropriate oversize/overweight vehicle permitting in border trade corridors;

• Additional rail connections between Texas and Mexico; • Equitable financing methods for road repairs; and • Engagement with USDOT, TxDOT and regional transportation

authorities on behalf of regional priority transportation projects.

Workforce Training and Public Education Our nation's greatest periods of growth have resulted from expanded educational opportunity that helped foster scientific breakthroughs that made products and processes faster, cheaper, and of better quality. The combination made America the most productive economy in the 20th Century. Investment in expanded educational opportunities is crucial for the continued prosperity and innovation of the border region. The border lags behind the rest of Texas in educational attainment. Twenty percent of all border residents age 25 or older have fewer than nine years of schooling. Only 11 percent have a bachelor’s degree and 6 percent have a post-graduate degree. Meanwhile, a fast growing unskilled labor force, coupled with limited job opportunities, contributes to high unemployment and lower wages throughout the region. As economist Ray Perryman has noted, in order for the Texas border economy to continue to grow, our workforce must be prepared for the jobs of the future. Businesses cannot function without quality workers. At the same time, individuals without marketable skills will find it increasingly difficult to find and keep quality jobs. Educational attainment is a primary aspect of being prepared for a job, but there are other considerations. Higher education and having a degree translate into better pay and a lower likelihood of being unemployed. Not all well-paying jobs require degrees, though nearly all require knowledge or skills. TBC supports education and workforce training at every level, from traditional K-12 public education, certification programs, adult basic education, and expanded higher education opportunities along the border. TBC supports an equitable and adequate school finance system that provides public school districts in the border region fair and equal access to Texas’ resources, while recognizing real cost differences among students and districts. TBC supports reform and full funding for adult basic education (ABE) programs. TBC also supports improved connectivity between public education and career training programs, such as aligning public education with career and technical education programs, and enhancing job-training partnerships between public school districts and community colleges. We oppose efforts to repeal in-state college tuition for undocumented students. Workforce preparedness is a multi-faceted challenge, and ensuring that border residents are receiving the knowledge and skills they need will benefit individuals, business and the border region as a whole.

For years, Texas has battled to find a school finance system that equitably funds all public schools in wealthy and poor communities. The reliance on local property taxes for the majority of public school funding strains communities with low property values—including border counties. In 2006, the Legislature reformed the public school finance system, which aimed to provide a general diffusion of knowledge through an efficient system of public schools. Because property wealth is not evenly distributed across the geography of the state, some school districts have the advantage of using a lower tax rate to generate revenue from a relatively large tax base. However, school districts with relatively low taxable property values must tax their residents at a higher rate to generate the same amount of revenue. In essence districts with relatively large tax

bases are property-wealthy, relative to most border school districts that do not have as large a tax base. This has led to some property-wealthy school districts being able to provide a more comprehensive and rigorous education for their students than other school districts. About 80 percent of border county students are economically disadvantaged. Different parts of the border

region have their own unique problems, but share high rates of students who need extra instruction to become proficient in English and populations with low graduation rates from high school. This combination of factors means that border areas have the lowest literacy levels as measured by the U.S. Department of Education survey. By strengthening workforce training and public education for the border workforce, Texas can invest in our state’s continued prosperity and innovation. With a comprehensive plan of action to provide local education and workforce leaders the resources necessary to take advantage of these opportunities, the border and Texas economy can grow and create jobs for our people.

Laredo Early College Graduation KUT Photo

Economic Development Interdependence is the way business gets done in the 21st Century economy, and this is especially clear in the border region, where events on one side of the border impact the other. Through systems of co-production, the U.S. and Mexico are interdependent for manufactured goods, linking the productivity and competitiveness of communities on both sides of the border and beyond. Christopher Wilson of the Wilson Center International Center for Scholars has pointed to the cooperation between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua as a prime example. These sister cities helped start the first maquiladoras, factories at which parts are assembled in Mexico for export purposes. Ciudad Juárez boomed with the arrival of these factories, first doing simple tasks like sewing jeans, but now thriving in much more advanced industries like aerospace, electronics, and auto parts. El Paso and the U.S. benefit from this growth as service providers offering legal, financial, and logistical support to industry. The defense, healthcare, education and tourism industries in the El Paso area have all grown to become key sectors in the border economy. Further south, Laredo is the busiest commercial port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border, serving as the primary gateway for U.S. trade with Mexico. The massive flow of manufactured goods and parts through the region offers significant opportunities for local suppliers and the burgeoning logistics industry. This opportunity exists both along the I-35 corridor and also further down the Rio Grande Valley, where there are already numerous medium-sized sister city pairs with important manufacturing clusters that are ripe for further expansion. Obviously, smart trade relationships and policies are indispensable to North America’s economic growth. Many in the U.S. look at the U.K’s June 2016 Brexit decision through the lens of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a

AP Photo

commercial agreement for geographically close nations designed to facilitate economic cooperation. There are parallels, but the view vastly misunderstands the intrusive nature of the E.U. In the wake of the Brexit vote, the NAFTA nations face a choice: 1) mimic the U.K. and turn inward, limiting economic progress and growth; or 2) seize the opportunity to enable greater North American economic growth by making trade more efficient – without succumbing to the economic drag fostered by the E.U. bureaucracy. For over a decade, TBC has urged investments in reducing the bottlenecks to trade among the NAFTA nations. By improving our land border crossing infrastructure, upgrading the technology that make customs clearances more efficient and hiring the inspectors needed to minimize the hours-long backups at the legal POE’s, we would encourage greater economic growth from legitimate trade and travel. These investments in international trade will help grow the $22 trillion North American economy that already outsizes our European and Asian competitors. The benefits of NAFTA commerce accrue to every state of the U.S. Improving our border crossings would not only benefit American jobs and wages, they would also add to border security. As discussed at length earlier, the overwhelming bulk of illegal heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine that fuels the international drug cartels enters the U.S. through the legal Ports of Entry. The scourge of the drug epidemic is impacting rural, urban and suburban communities across every state Helping the American economy, jobs and wages grow by fueling our partnerships with Canada and Mexico would also send a message to the world that North America is the powerhouse of the global economy now and in the future. The leaders of the Texas Border Coalition have no intention of falling into the inward looking, isolationist trap that appears poised to swallow our European competitors. We urge our state and national leaders to take advantage of the opportunity to boost North American economic growth, jobs and wages while helping secure the border. Finally, for over a decade, TBC has led a coalition of merchants and customs brokers from Brownsville, El Paso, McAllen and Laredo in helping reform the state system of “manifestos.” Manifestos are “proof of export” forms that the Texas Comptroller’s Office provides to customs brokers so that foreign buyers can obtain sales tax refunds – as required by the U.S. Constitution.

Looking Forward In order to continue to enhance the competitive position of North America, policymakers and stakeholders at the local, state, and federal levels need to better understand and establish policies that help the border region adapt to global realities and strengthen its role as an engine of growth for the North American Century. The Texas Border Coalition hopes you will join us in that endeavor. Stay connected with The Texas Border Coalition: Website: texasbordercoalition.org Facebook: Texas Border Coalition Twitter: @TBCCoalition Hashtag: #TXBorderCoalition